


Things You Said: Hajime/Chiaki

by AutisticWriter



Series: things you said [11]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Anti-shippers don't interact, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Nanami Chiaki, Blushing, Crushes, Depression, During Canon, F/M, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Holding Hands, Love, Nonverbal Communication, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic, Swearing, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-08-20 19:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16562186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: A collection of one shots written for a prompt list.





	1. things you said but not out loud

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1:  
> things you said but not out loud
> 
> Chiaki isn’t the chattiest person, but Hajime doesn’t mind. All he really knows is that he loves her.

Nanami Chiaki is quite a quiet person; Hinata Hajime has only known her for a few days (or however long they’ve all been stuck on this island with a useless talking rabbit and an evil talking bear) and he knows that. She’s usually found playing with the arcade machines in the hotel lobby or playing on a handheld console she probably got from the MonoMono machine (or a gift from someone during Free Time), or otherwise wandering around looking half asleep or actually sleeping… and one thing all of these activities have in common is that talking isn’t a part of it.

Of course, he knows Chiaki can talk (he hears her mumbling in her sleep and she occasionally takes action and orders the others around with remarkable authority), but she doesn’t do it very much. She just seems to be one of those people who doesn’t feel the need to speak all the time, unlike some of the incredibly chatty people Hajime has come to know.

To be honest, because Chiaki is so reserved, Hajime doesn’t know much about her other than her love for video games and her rather sleepy nature. But there is one thing he is certain about: she is incredibly pretty, and he has a crush on her.

But Hajime doesn’t even know his own Ultimate title, so how can he work out how to ask out someone like Chiaki?

 

Several days after he started working himself up to doing this, Hajime is finally ready to ask Chiaki out. He wanders around the 1st Island, trying to locate her, and also trying to calm the anxiety twisting his insides into knots.

With a bit of help from Peko, he learns Chiaki is on the beach by the MonoMono machine, so Hajime goes there. He steps onto the sand and sees her. Chiaki sits under one of the trees with her back against the trunk, her knees bent and her head bowed. And, as always, she plays a game on a handheld console.

Hajime approaches her, but she notices him before he has a chance to speak. He must be casting a shadow over her.

Chiaki looks up and smiles. “Hey hey, Hajime.”

“Hi,” he says, waggling his fingers. “Are you free to talk?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” she says, patting the sand beside her. “Want to sit down?”

“Please,” Hajime says, and he sits on the hot sand beside Chiaki, crossing his legs. “Thanks.”

“It’s fine,” Chiaki says, yawning. “What did you want to say?”

Hajime hesitates. He wants to ask her out so badly, but now he’s actually here…

He takes a deep breath. “Uh… Chiaki, I… uh… would you like to, uh… wanna go out with me?”

Chiaki glances at him, avoiding eye contact. “Hajime… do you mean… on a date?”

His face flushes a deep shade of red. “Um… yeah. So, what do you say?”

Slowly, Chiaki puts her console down on the sand and smiles at him, reaching for his hand. She interlocks their fingers and says, “I would love to go on a date with you.”

Hajime stares, eyes widening. He smiles and squeezes her hand. “Chiaki, thank you. This is amazing.”

Chiaki smiles and squeezes his hand back.

This is so amazing! Chiaki wants to go on a date with him!

 

After asking advice from the other students (other than Nagito, who he’s still not talking to after the first trial, Fuyuhiko, who told him to fuck off, and Gundham, whose advice with unintelligible), Hajime works out the best place for his and Chiaki’s date: the hotel restaurant. Mainly because they can play on the arcade machines afterwards.

Hajime sits at a table opposite Chiaki, waiting for the food he bugged some of the others into making for him, and smiles at her. She’s so beautiful, especially right now as she wears makeup with her hair tied up, and he just wants to kiss her.

“This was a nice idea,” Chiaki says, smiling. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” Hajime says, and Chiaki giggles.

And, to his amusement, she reaches under the table and pulls out her handheld console. Chiaki switches it on and starts to play, and Hajime, amazed at what he’s seeing, bursts out laughing.

“Huh?” Chiaki mumbles, looking up. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” he says, still laughing. “It’s just… I love how you’re always playing video games.”

Chiaki smiles, a blush patterning her cheeks. “Thank you. Hajime?”

“Yeah?”

Her face flushes redder and she whispers, “Can I kiss you?”

His eyes widening, Hajime smiles. “Sure you can.”

Chiaki stands up, and Hajime gets to his feet too. She steps around the table, puts her hands on his arms, reaches up on tiptoes, and… presses their lips together.

It’s a soft, sweet kiss, and Hajime puts his hands on her shoulders. They break apart for a couple of seconds, stare at each other… and kiss again.

Unfortunately, the beautiful moment is ruined by Kazuichi wolf-whistling and Sonia making comments about love. Hajime and Chiaki break apart, blushing.

But even with that intrusion, that was such a lovely kiss. Once the others have brought them their food and left them alone, Chiaki smiles.

“Are we dating now?” she asks.

“If… you want that.”

“I do,” Chiaki says, and she grins, blushing.

“Then, I guess we are,” Hajime says, squeezing her hand.

 

He has a girlfriend! Honestly, dating Chiaki makes this shitty life on this shitty island where people keep getting murdered a tiny bit more bearable. So rather than wandering around the islands on his own, he spends his time with Chiaki. They play on the arcade machines in the hotel and take walks together and play video games on matching handheld consoles, and… it’s just so great to spend time with her.

Like he said before, Chiaki isn’t very chatty. In fact, some of the times they spend together, Chiaki doesn’t say a single word. But it doesn’t matter, because he knows she’s having fun.

One day, Chiaki is struggling to speak, so she carries a notebook with her when they meet up to play video games. They sit together on the beach in the same place Hajime first asked her out, and Hajime says, “How are you?”

Chiaki pauses her video game and scribbles him a note. She passes it to Hajime, and he reads it.

**I’m fine, thanks. I love you.**

Hajime smiles and kisses her. “I love you too.”


	2. things you said that made me feel real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime has been depressed for a long time, but hanging out with Chiaki helps a little.

For as long as he can remember, Hinata Hajime has idolised Hope’s Peak Academy. Whenever he saw people talking about the school on the TV or he heard the name in real life, his ears pricked up and his heart rate increased, fascinated by what they were saying. He wanted to know everything about Hope’s Peak. He wanted to learn about the Ultimates that the whole country seemed to love. He wanted to go to that school more than anything.

But as he grew up, he realised something agonising: Hinata Hajime has no talents. There was (and is) nothing about him that made him stand out, let alone be what Japan would consider an Ultimate. He tried to become good at a large number of things, but he was always either awful or just plain average. Nothing about him was Ultimate.

So… when he was about twelve, Hajime finally admitted it to himself. The school he loved so much… was not for him. And, not that he’d ever admit it, he cried himself to sleep that night.

He tried to give up on his dream, but it was too difficult. Sometimes, he took a trip without his parents and stood outside the gates of Hope’s Peak, utter awe in his wide eyes. But the awe soon turned to jealousy, and Hajime had to fight to stop the tears running down his face.

Life repeated like this (Hajime thinking about what he could never have and wanting to cry), until one day last year, when he learned something amazing: Hope’s Peak Academy had opened a reserve course. A course that anybody could enrol in. a course that meant a talentless person could go to the same school as the Ultimates.

Of course, it was incredibly expensive and his parents weren’t the most enthusiastic, but Hajime begged and begged until they let him join.

And that explains why someone as talentless as Hajime stands outside Hope’s Peak Academy, ready to study here and have the life he always wanted.

\---

People call her an Ultimate, but she doesn’t really get it. Chiaki is just a girl who loves playing video games. The fact that she’s amazingly good at them isn’t really important to her. She would still play the games if she were crap at them, because the act of playing is more important to her than the scores she gets at the end.

Still, people have been calling her an Ultimate for a while now, amazed by her skill at gaming and wanting to play against her. Chiaki loves to game, so who is she to refuse?

To be honest, it didn’t surprise her when she was approached by a talent scout a few months ago (a man who later became her homeroom teacher), and was invited to enrol at Hope’s Peak Academy in April. Again, Chiaki would sort of rather spend all day in bed playing games, but going to a school where they let her build her talent rather than stopping her sounded good. So she agreed and her family through a party and Chiaki smiled awkwardly and went back to the Pokémon battle on her games console.

Anyway, all of this explains why she stands outside Hope’s Peak Academy, about to begin her life as the Ultimate Gamer.

\---

She first meets him by a fountain on campus, slumped on the bench and staring up at the cloudless sky. A boy with messy brown hair and an ahoge who wears Reserve Course uniform and looks thoroughly miserable, a boy who she recognises but can’t remember his name – a boy she has a feeling she will get to know very well.

“Hey, hey,” Chiaki says, pausing her video game and staring down at the boy.

He doesn’t turn his head, but his eyes flicker in her direction, and Chiaki forces eye contact even though it makes her eyes ache. The boy makes a noncommittal mumble, and goes back to staring up at the sky.

“There’s usually nobody here. That’s why I come here to play my game. The sound of the fountain is soothing, isn’t it?”

Still no reply. Wondering if her social skills are failing her of if the boy is just being awkward, Chiaki tilts her head.

“Um, I’m Nanami Chiaki. What’s your name?”

Finally, the boy responds. As though his limbs are heavy, he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bench, sitting in a normal position. He glances at her, and Chiaki spots the bags under his eyes.

“Hinata Hajime,” he says, voice flat.

“Are you okay?” Chiaki asks.

Hajime shrugs his shoulders. “Not sure. You’re from the main course, right?”

“Uh-huh. They call me the Ultimate Gamer.”

It finally hits her, and Chiaki wishes she could read people better. Sitting there, all withdrawn and tired and flat, Hajime looks… sad. No, not sad. He looks… empty.

“That’s cool,” Hajime says, sighing.

“Hey, would you… would you like to play a game with me?”

Hajime looks up. “But you’ll beat me.”

“Probably. But that’s not the point. It’ll be fun.”

He doesn’t look like he believes her, but Hajime gives her a rather forced smile and pats the bench beside him. “Why not?”

\---

Ever since that day, over a month ago, Chiaki has spent a lot of time with Hajime. She goes onto his campus at lunchtime and sits with him when they eat lunch. She waits for him after school at his gate and they walk home together. And they meet up at the fountain and play video games.

Hajime was right; Chiaki beats him at every versus game they play, often by a landslide. But Chiaki was right, because Hajime seems to enjoy himself. Although, in the end, Chiaki finds the best games to play are solo games or ones where they can work together, just to take the competition out of it.

But despite having all this fun, Hajime still looks empty.

“Hajime,” she says one day, not sure how to deal with her new friend’s behaviour. “Um… are you okay?”

Hajime sighs. “Do you want an honest answer?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, then… no.”

“What’s wrong?”

Another sigh. “I just… feel so worthless. I mean, why would an Ultimate like you want to hang around me anyway?”

“You’re not worthless,” Chiaki says. “And I want to spend time with you because… I like you. My talent isn’t important. I like you for who you are.”

“Even though I’m always miserable?”

Chiaki nods. “Yeah. I can tell you’re not normally like this, that something’s made you feel this way. Please, you can tell me.”

“It’s… complicated,” Hajime says, but he turns his head and actually looks at her. “But... thanks for caring. That stuff about liking me for who I am… it made… it made me feel real.” Hajime chuckles awkwardly, not reacting when his abandoned game gets a game over. “I just… ever since I realised I don’t have a talent, I’ve felt so… worthless. And coming to this school… it only made me feel worse. But for you to say that… I still feel awful, don’t get me wrong, but… I don’t feel quite so much like a zombie anymore. It’s, it’s hard to explain, but… I feel a tiny bit like the old me, I guess. Thank you, Chiaki.”

Chiaki doesn’t really get it (does Hajime mean he has been feeling… unreal?), but… even if she didn’t really do anything, she’s glad she could have made a bit of a difference for Hajime.

“You… you’re welcome,” she says, cheeks flushing.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want me to write you a short fic, drop in a prompt at my [personal prompt meme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AutisticWriters_Personal_Prompt_Meme)!


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